


Turn on the Lights

by AnonEhouse



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Honesty, Iron Man Post-Credits Scene, POV Nick Fury, Secrets, Team Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 06:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12501060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/AnonEhouse
Summary: What if after the press conference announcing his identity as Iron Man, Tony hadn't been so tired that he simply walked into the blacked out mansion and was surprised by Fury?What if he called JARVIS on his way home, and got no answer?What if he turned the tables on Fury?





	Turn on the Lights

Fury woke as he'd trained himself to do, instantly alert, and reaching for the gun in his leg holster. Bright light made him wince. His hand closed on nothing and his muscles suddenly seized up with cramp.

He heard, "I was about to warn you not to move."

Fury blinked and squinted against the bright lights. He was lying on the floor in Stark's Malibu mansion, looking up at Tony Stark, sitting at his ease on a nearby couch. Holding a Smith & Wesson M&P just like ... ok, don't kid yourself, Nick, it's your gun. And he's holding it like he knows how to use it, and won't hesitate. Ok, this is a fuck up.

"Hey, man," Fury put a whine into his voice. "That fuckin' hurt. What the hell you do to me?"

"Proprietary Stark tech, sorry, can't say any more than that." Stark leaned slightly forward. "What were you doing here?"

"I just... you know, I was _hungry_. I figured I'd lift a little something, you probably wouldn't even miss it."

"Uh huh," Stark said. "Sure."

"Just let me go. You can keep the gun, and I won't tell anyone about you usin' unnecessary force on me." Even in his own ears that sounded weak. But Stark was a soft touch, everyone knew that. "It'd be a third strike for me. Hard time. Have a heart."

Stark smiled. "Wow. That's incredibly unconvincing. So, I guess you never were in the undercover division, Nicky."

"What?"

"After I revived JARVIS," Stark said, and his voice was totally stone cold. "We checked you out. We were curious as to how you could bypass JARVIS- we wanted to be sure you weren't a loose end left over from Stane. You didn't have any I.D. on you, but you did have an eye. Retinal scan. And thinking about the Man in Black made us check for Strategic Homeland... yeah, let's cut the bull. You're SHIELD. There wasn't much to find, until we added in some of dad's background and filled in the blanks."

Fury grunted and spoke in his normal voice, answering the least important question. "I came up the military route. Not much call for cloak and dagger."

"Uh huh," Stark said again. "So, let's try it again, what were you doing here?"

"It's a bigger world than you think, Stark. There's a lot more to it than your personal vendettas." Fury sat up. Stark didn't try to stop him, but the gun moved smoothly, staying at center mass.

"You were going to try to recruit me?"

Fury scowled, stood, and rearranged his cloak. The leather was going to be creased to hell and gone. "Maybe. I was going to feel you out, quietly. But Coulson got the impression you were putting him off, and then you went and blew off our advice-- 'I am Iron Man'-- just to feed your ego. I'm not sure we even want you now," Fury said. He knew Stark's motivation, hell, hadn't he seen the reports? Little kid coming up with inventions hoping for a pat on the head from Howard. All you had to do was dangle the possibility of approval and he'd jump. Just make sure you keep him feeling like respect was _just_ within his reach, and he'd keep jumping. It had worked for Stane for decades.

Stark laughed. "Ego." He stood up. The gun was still in his hand. "You weren't listening to a thing I said, were you? It's not about me. It's about accountability. If Iron Man screws up, they come knocking on my door. They come to my door in the daylight, and I'm here." Stark pulled the clip from the gun and tossed it aside. "I'm loud, I'm proud, and I'm out of all the closets, Nicky." He threw the gun at Fury.

Fury caught the pistol and put it back in the holster. "I had to do it this way."

"No," Stark sounded tired. "You didn't have to break into my home and disable my security, turn off all the lights and wait in the dark. It was just... habit. It's a bad habit. I'm not getting into bed with an organization that operates like that."

"We work to protect the world!" Fury protested. "We run the missions no one else can do. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made, for the greater good. You haven't got the overall picture. You don't know what we protect you from."

"That's right. I don't know. No one knows. No one knows what you're doing, or what sacrifices you think are acceptable."

"I have superiors. I'm not doing this all on my own."

"What superiors? Can you give me their names? Do you even _know_?"

"They'd be in danger if their identities were known."

"Jesus, you don't even trust each other. Secrets on top of secrets, where does it end? Is it turtles all the way down?"

"Yes! It's all secrets, and you should be glad, because you don't want the burden, you never wanted the burden. That's why Stane got away with it for so long."

Stark's head went up, and his eyes were bright with anger. "That's right, I trusted him and I didn't look behind the curtain. That's not going to happen again. What else are you hiding?" Tony waved his hand. "I don't mean secret spy stuff, I mean, what were you planning to use to lure me in, because, honestly, I can't believe you were so dumb that you thought breaking and entering was a good recruitment strategy."

Actually, that had been pretty much it. Fury just wanted to shake Stark up, make him realize that he was vulnerable on his own, no matter how powerful he was in the suit. Scare him into thinking any connection with SHIELD would be better than none. But it had backfired and now he was scrambling for a way to salvage the situation. He really didn't want to lose Iron Man, hell, he didn't want to lose Tony Stark's money and genius with technology and weapons, either. "We found Captain Rogers."

"Who?" And then Fury saw the penny drop. "Huh. Got a definite I.D. on the corpse? I mean, seventy years in the ocean, how can you tell one set of bones from another? Still, even if you're not sure, I'd pay for his funeral. Dad would have liked that."

"He's not dead."

Stark blinked. "There must be a story behind that, but I think you need more time to arrange your lies."

"He's alive. I can prove it."

"Ok, fine. He's what, ninety? I could spring for the guy having a comfortable rest home retirement."

Fury pulled out his cellphone and put up the picture Coulson had added. "Biologically, he's in his late 20's, early 30's." He held the phone up so Stark could see the picture. Steve Rogers in Times Square. It was a very pretty photo. Very dramatic. And very obviously taken recently.

Stark stared at it in silence for a long moment, then he shook his head. "Dad worked as tech crew for Rogers and thought the sun shone out his ass. Dad also thought Stane was a great guy. You see what I'm getting at?"

"You wouldn't follow Captain America?"

"Got it in one." Stark smiled. "I might... MIGHT... be willing to assist SHIELD on missions, provided I got full information up front, and free rein. I'm not a team player, and have no interest in dragging along dead weight. Cap has a frisbee and a solid punch. He's not remotely in Iron Man's league."

Fury thought about saying something about Howard, but that was iffy. Stark ran hot and cold about Howard. Then again... there was something he had to offer. "Howard left a crate at SHIELD. Personal possessions, notebooks, a few other things. Now that I see you, I realize we should have turned them over to you years ago. I just couldn't think of a way to do it without revealing SHIELD. And you were..."

"I was?"

"A drunken, self-centered asshole," Fury replied.

Stark laughed. "Honesty, at last! Tell you what, Nick, send me Dad's box of junk, and a prospectus on what you really want from me. Maybe we can do business."

Fury nodded. He hadn't got what he came for, but maybe it was better this way. Shove all the crap at Stark, and pretty soon he'd be begging for Fury to just tell him what to do. Of course he would.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: I recently read a fic? comment? where Tony's reason for revealing he was Iron Man was accountability. I'm sorry that I don't recall who said it, but whoever you are, thanks!
> 
> (I keep meaning to get back to Peachy Keen, but PLOT BUNNIES keep attacking me.)


End file.
